THE POWER OF WE: Succeeding Through Partnerships

The CEO of Loews Hotels, Tisch preaches a management philosophy of cooperation: forging partnerships with employees, customers, shareholders and communities. A skeptical reader will ask what kind of partnership leaves the author heir to a $21-billion fortune while most of his employee-partners make less than $21,000 per year; the author addresses this question head-on, leaving the executive suite and performing the entry-level jobs in Loews hotels: cleaning, cooking, serving, repairing and checking guests in. The difficulty of these jobs reinforces "how crucial it is for top management to give the front-line people the tools, resources, and freedom they need to carry out their demanding jobs." He also confronts a union-busting reputation with a set of arguments for and against organized labor. The result is inspiring as an account of the way businesses should be run, but not entirely convincing as an account of the way Loews is actually run: Tisch describes at length how uncomfortable and humiliating the front-line employee uniforms are—but he doesn't consider changing them because they are cheap to launder. Accounts from other executives who practice partnership management argue strongly for the ideas; this book as a whole gives explicit examples and recipes for applying them with an entertaining mix of analysis and stories. (Sept.)